"I must know Chichester. It's a pity I didn't know him formerly."
"I don't believe that matters," said Malling, with intense conviction. "There is that in him which must strike you and affect you, whether you knew him as he was or not."
"So long as I don't turn tail and run from him, all's well. I will tackle Chichester. In the interests of science I will face this curate. But how shall I approach him? As in golf, the approach is much, if not everything."
He sat thinking for some minutes, with his eyebrows twitching. Then he said:
"The question is, Should the approach be casual or direct? Shall I describe a curve, or come to him as the crow comes when making for a given point—or is said to come, for I've never investigated that matter? What do you say?"
"It's very difficult to say. On the day I dined in Hornton Street,
Chichester certainly wanted to tell me something. He asked me to dine,
I am almost sure, in order that he might tell it to me."
"About the sittings with Harding, no doubt."
"That, perhaps, and something more."
"But he told you nothing."
"Directly."